On A Ragged Tip: 11 For '11
On A Ragged Tip: 11 For '11
With the passing of each year, Ragged Words gets to add another future star to our tips for the year. So, following on from our 9 for '09 (which contained no less than two future Mercury Prize winners) and 10 for '10 (featuring end-of-year-list crashers Gold Panda and Sleigh Bells), we present to you - in alphabetical order - the RW 11 for '11: a selection of not-yet-fully-established new acts (i.e. James Blake doesn't count!) whom we reckon you should pay close attention to over the next twelve months. Think we've left someone out? Then let us know in the comments below!
A recent Irish Times article shone a light on the continued health of Ireland’s instrumental music scene, citing a disproportionately high number of domestic acts among the current crop who are opting to burn their lyric books and let the music do the talking. Enter Dublin four-piece Alarmist, who follow in the slipstream of compatriots Enemies and And So I Watch You From Afar in crafting dense, multilayered post-rock that’s equal parts rocking and restrained – all without so much as a single throat being cleared. Check out the two tunes currently streaming on the guys’ Bandcamp – or, better still, their tight-as-fuck live show – for proof of Alarmist’s growing potential.
They’re signed to Kitsuné and already have two BIG pop singles behind them – so this year’s Two Door Cinema Club perhaps? Well, not exactly. While November’s excellent ‘Once and For All’ gave a glimpse of Clock Opera’s festival tent-filling potential, prior single ‘A Piece of String’ – along with remix work for Marina & The Diamonds and Everything Everything, amongst others – suggests the Londoners should also have enough in the locker to keep the electro heads happy. Expect a breakthrough this year akin to that achieved by soundalikes Passion Pit in 2009.
Having landed the coveted competition-winners’ slot at last year’s Electric Picnic, Dublin quartet Cloud Castle Lake then went on to become the talk of October’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival – all without any official releases to their name. The band’s grand ambition is immediately evident in their live sound: a swirling mix of krautrock rhythms, unpredictable guitar tantrums and somersaulting vocals from frontman Daniel McCauley. With subtle nods to Portishead and latter-day Radiohead, this is a name we’re bound to be seeing a lot more of as the year picks up speed.
In all honesty, we don’t actually know a great deal about Brooklyn goth duo CREEP – few among ye olde blogosphere do, it seems – but we certainly like what little we have heard from Laurens Flax and Dillard. The fact that Young Turks put out the pair’s recent single ‘Days’ probably accounts for the presence of The xx’s Romy Madley Croft as guest vocalist, but even without her detached presence it’s a chillingly assured slice of aural black magic. A few more tunes like it, and CREEP should go a long way towards ensuring that the witch house ‘non-scene’ doesn’t get burnt at the stake in 2011.
Not many tips for 2011 are able to boast that John Peel once played their record on air. But then, considering DELS’ first single came out on Moshi Moshi in early 2008, the big year that lies ahead of the Ipswich-bred rapper has been a long time coming. The Big Dada-signed MC has been busy filling his contacts book in the intervening three years, with long-time collaborator Joe Goddard featuring heavily on April-due debut LP GOB, alongside Kwes, Roots Manuva and Micachu. Expect a single or two before then, as well as another mind-bending us-directed video.
It’s rare for a new band to arrive sounding fully-formed and instantly thrilling, but Echo Lake did just that with a couple of MP3s last year, managing in the process to tick all the right shoegaze boxes without sounding the least bit stale. The London five-piece even took a stab at covering Ariel Pink – not a task for the fainthearted – and came out the other side unscathed. Their debut EP, entitled Young Silence, boasts six tracks full of shimmering, dark and dreamy textures; be sure to grab it when it arrives on February 14 through No Pain In Pop.
While we’re not really expecting many of our Class Of 2011 to be proper household names come the end of the year, Oxford’s Fixers could well prove the exception. Influenced by the likes of Brian Wilson and Dead Can Dance, the NME-approved outfit somehow manage to channel this into something with mainstream appeal. When debut single ‘Iron Deer Dream’ gets going, it even sounds a little like early Killers; but don’t worry if that puts you off, because there are thankfully plenty of spaced-out, Beach Boysesque harmonies in there too. Judge for yourself when it comes out via Young And Lost Club next month.
As a general rule, Ragged Words tries to avoid overuse of the word ‘ethereal’, but unfortunately there’s just no better way to describe the music made by Canadian duo Memoryhouse. Last February’s The Years EP yielded four dream pop tracks that actually sounded like they were recorded in a dream (the opening cut was even entitled ‘Sleep Patterns’ for god’s sake!); since then, there’s been a clutch of singles, suitably blurry videos and tumblr updates, not to mention remixes from the likes of Teengirl Fantasy and MillionYoung. With a debut album now in the pipeline, if 4AD haven’t signed this pair before the summer arrives we’ll eat our hats.
Ok, so most of us are already familiar with ‘Fake Blood’, Squarehead's end-of-year-poll-conquering 7” single that soundtracked much of Ragged Words’ misspent summer thanks to its appearance on Popical Island's ace Compilation #1. Well, the good news is that there’s plenty more where that came from: anyone who caught the Dublin grunge pop trio at one of their umpteen 2010 gigs will tell you that tunes like ‘Baseball Ghosts’, ‘Axes of Love’ and ‘Mother Nurture’ are bursting with sun-drenched slacker melodies and killer riffs to spare. With a debut album arriving soon – most likely via Richter Collective – expect to see the lads making wav(v)es far beyond these shores over the next twelve months.
Just as DELS is alone among this list in having the Peel seal-of-approval, nobody else here has a SoundCloud page that can match that of Manchester beatmaker Darren Williams. J Dilla disciple Williams, whose work as Star Slinger has caught the attention of heavy hitters like Pitchfork and Gorilla Vs. Bear, is already astonishingly prolific, with scrapped-together EPs (like last week’s Rogue Cho Pa) sitting alongside ear-catching remixes for the likes of Deerhunter and Broken Social Scene – not to mention a full volume of original work already under his belt. Further singles are due out on Mexican Summer and Double Denim early this year. Much as we hate choosing favourites, Star Slinger is arguably the pick of this particular bunch.
When we spoke to them back in August, Still Corners weren’t giving too much away about what labels had been drawn to their woozy, blog-endorsed tunes. As it turns out they did well to keep their council, because Sub Pop have since brandished their chequebook, leading to the Londoners recently joining a fairly exclusive list of UK acts signed to the iconic Seattle imprint. Fans of Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain and, more recently, Twin Sister should save some space on their iPods for a presumably-reverb-soaked 7” due out early this year, with a debut album to follow in its own good time.
